For the past year I’ve been following the blog of a guy named Colin Beavan, who lives in New York City with his wife, their 2 year old child, and a dog.  Colin dubbed himself the “No Impact Man,” and decided to spend a year trying to make the smallest ecological impact he could. 

He and his wife decided that they would walk or bike everywhere they went, buy nothing but locally-produced fruits, vegetables and meat, and buy nothing sold in packaging.  They decided to do their laundry by hand, not to buy any paper products, not to use air conditioning, and not to produce any waste except what they could put in their compost pile. 

He began his experiment around the time I was diagnosed with a recurrence of my breast cancer, a time when I was seriously evaluating my life, the impact I had made on the world so far, and possibly the limited time I may have left to effect any kind of change in the future.

 During the week after my diagnosis, I had CAT scans and a bone scan to make sure the cancer hadn’t spread.  The day after my bone scan, I got a call from my oncologist: there was a spot on my left arm that lit up.  I had to have an MRI to see what the lesion was.

I was in shock.  How could I go from non-invasice to metastatic cancer in less than a year?  I called one of my friends, who came over after work and sat on the couch listening while I cried and asked unthinkable questions with no easy answers.  How could this happen?  Is it possible for cancer to spread that fast?  How could I feel so well but be so sick?  And finally, What do I do if the MRI comes back positive?

My friend’s answer was very practical: you do everything you always wanted to do, you just do it faster.

Country singer Tim McGraw wrote about a similar scenario in his song Live Like You Were Dying:

He said I was in my early forties with a lot of life before me

When a moment came that stopped me on a dime

and I spent most of the next days looking at the x-rays

Talking ’bout the options, talking ’bout sweet time

I asked him when it sank in that this might really be the real end

How’s it hit you when you get that kind of news?  Man, what’d you do?

and he said, I went sky diving.  I went Rocky Mountain climbing

I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu

And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter

and I gave forgiveness I’d been denying

And he said, someday I hope you get the chance

To live like you were dying

It turns out, the lesion that lit up on my arm was benign and, thanks be to God, I do not have metastatic cancer.  But it really made me think.

Conventional wisdom tells cancer patients that if you get a terminal diagnosis, you get a carte blanche to do whatever you want to do, whatever makes you happy. 

Live it up. Go nuts. Blow the wad. Throw caution to the wind. And a lot of other carefree cliches.  But what if there’s another option?

I was thinking about this the other day when I was paying my bills and figuring out my monthly budget.  While I was crunching the numbers, I started to wonder where all my money is going. 

I always thought I was disciplined with my money: I put a certain amount in my checking account every month, and I use it to pay rent, utilities, and other fixed expenses.  But there’s extra money that I spend every month on…well…stuff, I guess.  It’s not super expensive stuff, but it adds up. 

Starbucks lattes. Eating out. Clothes. Newspapers.  More Starbucks. Maybe an occasional manicure.  Plane tickets.  Train tickets.  Books.  Magazines.  More Starbucks.  And a lot of other non-necessities.

I started wondering what would happen if I attempted a year of high-impact living.  What if I only afforded rent, utilities, gas and groceries (i.e., the necessities) and gave up buying everything that was unnecessary, and gave that money away to a cause greater than me?

What if I contributed that monthly amount to missions?  Or to the trust fund I’ve talked about starting that would fund college educations for low income women?

What if, instead of using my brush with cancer as an excuse for self-indulgence, I used it as a motivation, echoing the advice of my friend, to do everthing good I always wanted to do in the world…

                                                                                                                                        … only faster?